:i fl t Cattle Grazing in the Forest of,Arden in the Later Middle Ages By ANDREW WATKINS

Abstract This paper studies the influence and scale of pastoral farming in the economy of the Forest of Arden in the Later Middle Ages. It seeks to determine the numbers and types of animals kept and demonstratehow the profits of pastoral farming benefited a number of social groups in the region. Many demesnes were retained by their resident lords to graze cattle to feed their households while the fattening of beef animals for the market afforded scope for social and economicadvancement by peasant families. This emphasis on animal husbandry encouraged the cultivation of hay and fodder crops in turn helping to bolster the arable economy in the area.

T r~z tradition and emphasis in the cereals. The area under the plough shrank, study of later medieval English agri- most notably in the fifteenth century, and culture has been firmly focused on the most obvious way to utilize the lapsed the large cereal-dominated ecclesiastical or arable was to convert it to pasture. noble estates of lowland . Although in upland Engand and forest Although studies have been made of wool areas animal husbandry had probably growing, pastoral farming has very much always vied with cereals for importance been relegated to a secondary position, this was not true of lowland England, most historians preferring to stress, as did where the plagues helped a shift to a more Postan, livestock's supporting role in cereal mixed agricultural economy. Animals had production.' This is regrettable as in many a strong appeal for producers. Apart from areas, mainly northern England, the north their meat their by-products of wool and Midlands, and a/so in the south-west, the hides could be extremely valuable, and raising and fattening of livestock both for where cereal cultivation required large subsistence and for sale had far greater seasonal workforces animals only needed importance than grain production." The a few specialized stock keepers throughout following study examines how this gener- the year. Increasingly after the mid- ally neglected type of medieval agrarian fourteenth century landlords turned to ani- economy adapted to the new circumstances mals in a bid to shore up their demesne of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centur- economies.3 ies. The move in emphasis fi'om arable to The plague and the following epidemics pastoral in is well docu- had profound effects on many aspects of mented. Although the area of pasture in the economy, one of which was to help the Forest of Arden did increase in the redress the balance between livestock and later middle ages it was most dramatically pronounced in the old settled Feldon of * I ant greatly indebted to Christopher Dyer, Rodney Hilton, and Jean Birrell for their kind and constructive help in the preparation the south of the county where, in the of dais article. century and a half following I35o, arable ' E Power, Medieval English Wool Trade, Oxford, 1944; M M Postan, Essays on Medieval Agricuhure and General Problems of land was lapsing to pasture ola a much the Medieval Econonly, Cambridge, t973, ch x x. Two notable greater scale than in the Arden. This move- exceptions to the southern English cereal bias arc R Trow-Smith, A History of British Livestock Husbandry to tToo, 1957, and I ment was noted and emphasized by two Kershaw, Bohon Priori,' Oxford, t973. H P R Finberg, Tavistoek Abbey, Cambridge, ~95t; N W Alcock, -' For a recent example see M Mate, 'Agrarian Economy a/ier the 'An East Devon Manor in the Later Middle Ages', Transactions Black l)cath: The Manors of Canterbury Cathedral Priory, qfthe Devonshire Association, CII, 197o, pp ~41-g8. 1348-9t', Ecou Hist Rev, and scr, XXXV[I, 1984, pp 341-54. Ag Hist Rev, 37, I, pp Ia-a5 1 2 t CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES I3 contemporary writers. John Rous, writing oxen and fourteen other bovine animals, in the late fifteenth century, has perpetu- and a flock of 308 ewes and 214 lambs ated the image of the Feldon of flocks of in I389-9o. Similarly at Birdingbury in sheep grazing amid the dilapidated, I397-8 the grange account lists 243 sheep decayed ruins of a village, while less dra- but only sixteen bullocks, while at Snitter- matically in the I53os John Leland field in 143o--1 a flock of I67I sheep is described it as an area of corn-growing recorded, with twenty-seven oxen, twenty champion villages interspersed with pas- cows, seventeen steers, and thirteen calves ture land. 4 also being maintained on the same Although a forest in the sense that it demesne. Conversely, they were hardly supported much woodland the Forest of ever recorded on the Arden estates at Chil- Arden in was never a vers Coton, Grendon and Astley. The rela- forest by strict legal definition, as, unlike tive importance of sheep on a north Feckenham in Worcestershire or Rock- Warwickshire manor is well illustrated at ingham in Northamptonshire, it had not Middleton in I355 where in an inventory come under Forest Law. Although there of the goods and chattels of Baldwin Fre- had been much clearance of woods by the ville it was recorded that he had owned mid-fourteenth century a forest economy cattle worth £38 I4S but sheep only to the still functioned in the Arden in the later value of 8s 3d. 6 middle ages. Common field land was lim- Although calves were reared in the ited in area, there was an abundance of Arden, Wales undoubtedly provided the closes in severalty and many inhabitants major source of beef cattle. Droving routes pursued industrial by-occupations, s This from North Wales to the south-east of in turn was only part of a much larger England passed through the area. Birming- woodland area, stretching south-west into ham and possessed large cattle the royal Forest of Feckenham while north- markets and two of the most important wards it merged into Cannock Chase and routes of the early modern drovers passed Needwood, which in turn became part of through the Arden market towns of Coles- upland England. hill, and , probably Within Warwickshire the animal land- reflecting medieval routeways. 7 Some men scape was split along the geographical div- in these towns were actively engaged in ide with sheep dominating the Feldon, the trade, such as John le Deyster, a drover, while cattle, animals often associated with who was resident in Coleshill in I383 and forests, were numerically superior in the by I4O9 had developed his trade to its Arden. This was a trend going back well logical conclusion and was living in Lon- before the fifteenth century and is well don. s Accounts from the Beauchamp illustrated by surviving grange accounts manor of Wedgnok Park show that some for the Feldon and Avon Valley. In " Sutton-under-Brailes: Gloucestershire Record Office, 13 I379-8o at Sutton-under-Brailes it was re- 1o99/M31/44:, Lighthome: Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust Record corded that the demesne kept 2oo sheep Office (hereafter SBT), DR 98/672a; Birdingbury: Devon P,ecord Office, 248 M/MG; Snitterfidd: Britisb Library (hereafter BL), but only nine oxen. The Earl of 's Egerton Roll 8624; Chilvers Coton: PRO, SC 6/1o38/2o; Grcn- manor of Lighthorne possessed twenty-six don: Staffordshire Record Office (hereafter SRO), D(W) 1744/19; Astley: Warwick County Record Office (hereafter WCRO), CR 136/c, 15o--2; Middleton: Nottingham University Library 4 C Dyer, IV,lrwickshire Farmin(,,, 1349-c.15..'o, l)ugdale Society (hereafter NUL), Mil 40. Occasional Paper, XXVII, 198 t, pp 9-12; J P,ot.,s Historia Rt~unt P, A Holt, The Early Histor), of the Town of ~166 to Angliae, T Heame (cd), 1745, pp 119-26; Lehvld'S Itinerary, L 16oo, Dugdale Society Occasional Paper, XXX, 1985, pp m-f1, Toulnfin Smith (cd), 19o8. V, pp 40, 47, 5o. C Skeel, 'The Cattle trade Between Wales and Englaud fronl 5 This will hopefully be COnlprchcnsive cow'red in nay forthcoming the Fifteenth Century to the Nineteenth Century', Tram Rol,al Phl) thesis "Society and Econonly in the Forest of Arden, Hist Soc, 4th ser, IX, 191o, p 148. 135o--154o'. Birmingham Reference Library (hereafter BRL), A 368, A 454. I4 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

~'~eNO.on Regis Ft. Anker

TAMWORTH oWilnecote ~'Grendon,k. -N- o..u.. Middleton • ATHERSTONE Coldfiold u,.~.. ",.. Kinclsbury • Ik • • ,,~^.u. ,.,. - "~ • Drakonage • Mancetter w=snaw eMarston= (, Coten • ou&-ry~ .,,.J• • Halioughton Erdingtone Curdworth • •Lea Marston Ha#shill~'~wed¢ . ..~..,...... ,/*- */~7~='~----ne*~ Shust°k° • Arley =Chilve= COLESHILL • • Astleyo Coton Castle • BIRMINGHAM • Maxstoke • FUlongley Priory FOREST OF ARDEN

Solihull • Hampton-in-Arden COVENTRY • Brinklow • Berkswoh • Knowle Temple Brandon • Balsall Stivichall• SIonolo Wroxall Tanworth- • Look ...~ "4 • in-Arden Baddesley wootto., Clinton • Birdingbury Wodgnock •

Budbrooke •

Snitterfield • Oversley • Chesterton • Radbourne

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON • Lighthorne

PRE-1974 BOUND • PLACES MENTIONED IN TEXT ~ Sutton- SMALL TOWNS MENTIONED ~ =under-Brailes IN TEXT ~/ I LARGER URBAN CENTRES J

o 5 lO MILES -,,,../~. ~'-- ! ! t

FIGURE i Late Medieval Warwickshire, indicating places mentioned in the text ! CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 15 transactions were made directly with many other estates in the area this was for Welsh drovers. Other demesne managers household consumption rather than for the looked further afield. The Beauchamps market. Cattle accounted for a significant bought what again must have been Welsh proportion of the livestock kept, which cattle from Bromyard and Worcester, also included pigs, poultry and horses. In while others bought in North Midland this period often there were about forty to cattle from Lichfield and Tamworth, or forty-five cattle of which about fifteen to some such as the Catesbys, who held a twenty were usually cows with calves.'-" cluster of manors outside the Arden on the The remainder were heifers and bullocks Warwickshire-Northamptonshire border, being fattened, many of which had been made occasional forays to the market of originally calves of the dairy herd. The Chesterfield. 9 stock was mainly self-replacing with both The attractions of cattle for landlords a bull and a boar kept. Animals also came were considerable. Clearly they were not into the herd as strays and heriots. Another prey to variations in wool prices and herd of catle was evidently maintained on neither did they require specialized feed. the Astley manor of Weddington, near They cost little to maintain other than in Nuneaton, as beasts were often driven winter fodder and investment in the from there to Astley. upkeep of enclosures and some form of The hunting park surrounding Astley byre or shelter. Medieval cowhouses, Castle seems to have comfortably accom- where recorded, seem quite large: the modated their grazing requirements as in horns meant that considerable room would 14oo it was recorded that 'Greysacre' in be required for each animal. At the Leices- the park had been reserved for the depas- ter Abbey grange of Berwood in Curd- turing of the stock for the household. worth a vaccaria of six bays was recorded.'° Crops were cultivated on the demesne to Neither were labour costs very great as provide fodder and peas and beans, barley, only one or two stockmen would be and oats harvested there were often fed to needed throughout the year, rather than the cattle, as well as pigs and poultry, the large seasonal workforces demanded presumably during winter. during cereal production or by sheep dur- The Duke of Buckingham's demesne ing shearing. More labour intensive was at Maxstoke castle was also involved in dairying, a task usually undertaken by grazing to maintain sufficient animals on women both in processing and retailing the hoof for the consumption of the large household which by the mid-I45OS prob- ably numbered just over one hundred. '3 I The demesne had been converted to pas- The most detailed evidence of livestock ture and meadow and was organized to keeping in the Arden are the accounts for provide grazing for the household's live- the demesne of the middle-ranking peer stock, mainly consisting of cows, sheep, lord Astley at Astley which survive for the '" hi I395-6 twenty-five bullocks and eight cows with eight catvcs late fourteenth and early fifteenth centur- were recorded. In t4oo-.-t two bulls, t,.vcnty-one bullocks, a heifi:r, eleven cov,,s, and eight calves arc listed. In t40t-2 a bull, ies." There the demesne was cultivated twenty-three bullocks, ten cov.,s, and twelve calves appear in the directly as late as 1432 although as with extent. ~ Details of the demesne at Maxstoke Castle arc contained in the dispersed Duke of Buckingham's P,eceiver-General's Accounts: " Dyer, op cit, p 2o; WCRO, CR 895/8/18; CR 895/8/19; PRO, SRO, 1)6411tl21269 - D64ff1121276; BP, L, DV 2 168-"36; PRO, SC 6/Io43/Io. SC6/m4o/15; Maxstoke Castle, Fetherston-Dilkc MSS (I am '°L Mitchell, A Histor), of the Manor ql" Be)'lVOOa. Birmingham, indebted to Captain C B Fethcrston-l)ilke for kindly allowing 1926, p iS. mc to makc use of his archive); C P,awliffe, The Sta.&rds, Earls " WCRO, CP, 136/c~5o (1395-6), CR 136/c15~ (14oo--Ol), CP, ql'Sta.llbrd and Dukes of Buckingham 1394-15"-1, Cambridge, 1978, t36/c152 (14Ol-2), CP, t36/ct54 (t432-3). pp 6tY..-7o. I6 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW and riding horses. The park was also used raised animals for their own consumption for pigs, cows, and sheep in addition to and the market is well known. Within the the deer. The demesne was occasionally Forest of Arden John Brome of Baddesley leased out to farmers usually only for one Clinton lucratively indulged in buying beef year at a time so it could be retrieved easily cattle from Coventry and Birmingham, when the Duke and his entourage were in fattening them on his demesne, and then residence. Most of the stock was purchased selling to butchers for considerable pro- locally on the hoof, although occasionally fits. 19 In the absence of equally detailed it was bought ready slaughtered as in evidence for the rest of the Arden it is I452- 3 when £2I I6s was spent on I83 difficult to assess how typical Brome was beef carcasses.'+ Purchases of animals were of the gentry of the area. However, cattle usually made in fairly large numbers such grazing must have been an obvious and as £I4 I4s 2d paid also in I452-3 to the practical venture with the proximity of the local peasant producers Thomas Colet and Birmingham and Coventry cattle markets, Thomas Underwood, while considerable Welsh droving routes and the potentially numbers were bought from Coventry. 'S large nearby urban markets. Coventry was The nearby also main- the unofficial regional capital of the Mid- tained quite large numbers of anim/ils with lands, the third largest provincial centre in cattle again predominating. In the I44OS England in the 1377 Poll Tax and even in and I45os it frequently had mixed dairy I525 when undergoing a slump in fortunes and beef herds numbering between forty it was still among the top rank of English and fifty with a herd of seventy-two rec- provincial towns. Neither Birmmghana orded in I442-3. '6 Most of its stock was nor Warwick were as populous or wealthy either raised through the dairy herd, as Coventry but both by the fifteenth and acquired as heriots or strays, or bought early sixteenth centuries appear to have directly from peasants living in adjacent supported populations well in excess of a villages. '7 The east Arden Abbey at Mere- thousand inhabitants. -'° vale similarly owned beef cattle, most pur- The demesne stock presents a problem chased from local villages or the nearby in determining to what extent animals town of Atherstone, while there is fleeting were kept for sale, as distinct from meeting evidence to suggest that Stoneleigh Abbey the needs of the household. In the case was also keeping cattle herds. Maxstoke of Sir Ralph Shirley, who held a north and Merevale both slaughtered cattle for Warwickshire estate at Newton Regis, the their own table but some of the former's division is fairly obvious. On his death in dairy produce was retailed in local markets, I516 he left livestock to the value or" £82 such as Coleshill. 1~ 6s 8d including ninety-four cattle of various Below the level of the nobility and the types and I6o young sheep.-" Quite clearly religious houses the evidence of pastoral activity is less plentiful. The important role '"J R Birrcll, 'The Forest Economy of the Honour of Tutbury in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries'. Birm l-list Jnl, VIII, of gentry in commercial livestock hus- 1961. pp 119-21; M .1 Bennett, Comtmotit),, ('.hiss attd C(lrt'('riet)l, bandry in the North Midlands, where they Cambridge, 1983. p 71; S M Wright. The Derbyshire G+'ntrI, in the F{lieenth Cemltr),, l)crbyshirc Record Society. VIII+ Matlock. 1983. pp 19-21; C l)ycr. 'A Small Landowner in the Fifteenth .4SRO, D641/1/3/4. Century', Mid Hist. 1, 1971-2. pp 1-14. '~ SRO, 13641/1/3/4. :" C l'hytllian-Adams. Desolation t+l'a City, Cambridge. 1979, pp '" Bodlcian Library (hereafter Bod Lib), MS Trinity 84, pp itS, 11-16. 33-35: Holt op tit. passim; P, A Holt. 'Tile Economic 123. 129, 13o, 132, 134. Ill 1442-3 the Primy had a mixed herd Development of l+irmingham bcforc I553'. Unpublishcd Univ composed of forty-two bullocks, eighteen cows, twelve calves. of Birminghanl MA thesis, chapter 6; VCH ll'arlt.ickshirc, VIll, and a bull, MS Trinity 84, p t32. p 480. .r Bod Lib, MS Trinity 84. pp t23, t29, 15o, 15 I. " Leicestershire P,ecord Office, 26 1)53/1949. Although Shirk'y did '~ PP.O, E 315/-'83. this 19. 27, Bod Lib, MS Trinity 84, p t29, own Newton Regis his livestock was almost certainly on his SBT, I)P, 18/3o/t4/~1. North Midl,md estates. i' CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES I7 with this number of animals Shirley was Fragmented as this information is it producing for the market but for others would seem that many resident landlords the proportion is less clear. were involved in subsistence grazing, often The consumption of meat in an upper using their parklands as a sort of larder. gentry household is well illustrated by Sir However there were groups within Arden William Mountford of Coleshill's receiver society that were able to exploit the con- general's account of I434. In the r436 ditions and advance economically and soci- income tax he was assessed at £258, the ally through cattle grazing and it is to these richest knight in Warwickshire, and in the that our attention now turns. account of I434 had an income of £274 I6S IV2d. Therefore his household's eating habits may be more extravagant than those II of other gentry in the area, but gives an Studies throughout the country have idea of the likely consumption levels of shown the ability of elements within rural other small households.:-" Meat was eaten society to take advantage of the landlords' throughout the year apart from during withdrawal from a market-orientated pro- Lent and on Fridays and Saturdays. The ductive economy by taking up demesne Mountfords evidently kept a small herd of leases. As elsewhere the wide social range mixed animals, buying twenty-three steers of lessees, including clergy, gentry, mer- at Coventry for £7 5s 8d, twenty sheep for chants, and peasants is apparent in War- 35s and six pigs for I2s 2d. In the course wickshire. =4 In the Forest of Arden quite a of the year thirty steers, fifty-six calves, number of demesnes were retained by lords sixty-one ewes, and thirty-six pigs, taken to graze their domestic livestock. On other both from the demesne stock and from Arden estates, usually lacking a resident outside purchases made from local peas- lord, butcher graziers were prominent les- ants, were consumed. Therefore ifa gentry sees. Pastureland of St Mary's, Warwick, household was only supplying its own near to Warwick was nearly always leased needs the number of animals involved by butchers, while demesnes and parkland could be quite large. Apart from the at Tanworth-in-Arden, Berkswell, Lea Mountfords other gentry families were Marston, Wedgnok, and Middleton were maintaining similar herds after they had also leased by them. -'-~ They also leased leased out their demesne arable. The Brace- pastures at Coleshill, Brinklow, and Leek bridges at Kingsbury, for example, in I39O Wootton. -~6 Most of these butchers came were grazing a cattle herd, while the Fre- from the large population centres: Benedict villes repossessed parkland and pasture at Lee, Thomas and Edmund Wattes, and Middleton in the fifteenth century to depasture their own animals. Incidental :4 For example: F 1), H Du Boulay, 'Who were Farming the English Demesnes at the End of the Middle Ages?', Econ Hist Reo, and references suggest that other families such series, XVII, 1965, pp 443-55; B F Harvey, IVestmim'ter Abbe), as the Ardens, Binghams, Bracebridges, and its Estates itt the Middh' A~os, Oxford, 1977, pp 151-2; J A P,aftis, The Estates t!]" Ramse l, Ahho),, Toronto, 1957, pp 29o-.q; Clintons and Harewells may also have kept U P,ccs, 'The Lcases of Haughmond Abbcy, Shropshirc', Mid animals on their demesnes during the fif- Hist, VIII, 1983, pp 13-29; J W Hare, 'The l)cmcsnc Lessees of Fifteenth Century Wiltshire', .41., Hist ReI,, 29, 1981, pp t-15. teenth century.-~3 For Warwickshire sec l)ycr, W,o'wickshiro Farming, pp 4-5. '~ Minister's A ecomlts of the Colleqiate Chm'dl qt" St Mar},, lVarwick, 1432-85, D Styles (ed), Dugdale Society, XXVI, 1969, pp 4, t8, '" SBT, I)R 37/73; H L Gray, 'Incomes from Land in England in 43, 134, ~34; SBT, 1)1),37/1o8/33, DR 37/1o8/51-5; Mi~ister's 1436', Etzk, Hist Rcv, IL, 2934, p 639. Accomlts o['tho lVarwickshiro Estates q/'tlu' Duke q/'Clarettce, 1479-8o, :~ NUL, MiM 162. 164, 166; Colh'ctions.lbra Histor), tfSt,~.{tbrdshire, R H Hilton (ed), Dugdale Society, XXI, 195a, p 62; BRL, XV. I884, p 14o; NUL 5/167/Iol; Rolls ql'the llS~,'wickshire ,Iml Norton MSS 87, 89, 1ot, 19ycr, Warwickshire Farming, p 18; Col,entr), Sessions of the Pe,~ce, E G Kimball cd. l)ugdalc Society, NUL, ..:,/167/1Ol, Mil')4437. XVI, 1939, p "o; NUL, MiLs; W Cooper, IVootton II'alt,t'n: Its -'" BRL, A555, A568, SBT, I)R 1o/98, I)R IO/"243, I)R History ,rod Records; Leeds, 1936, p 14. 18/3o/a6/16, I)R 18/3o/26/4. 18 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW John Savage of Warwick; John Lichfield, Drakenage as Dey was styled 'of Draken- Morrys Bocher, and John Deyster of age' from 1444 onwards, the year that Coventry; and Henry Ball of Tamworth the previous fifty-year lease of the manor who leased Middleton Park in I379. expired.S° When John Dey enfeoffed several On the other Arden demesnes for which of the local gentry in 1472 his lands lay documentation survives at Atherstone, in Lea Marston, Marston, Coten, Cliff, Kingsbury, Maxstoke, Middleton, Old Fil- Wilnecote, Tanworth-in-Arden, Arley, longley, and Sutton Coldfield a more com- Tamworth and Halloughton, and in the mon arrangement was piecemeal leasing to enfeoffment he is styled a 'grazier'. s' local inhabitants. ~7 This meant that few His activities are quite well recorded. large-scale peasant holdings incorporated At Kingsbury in the late I44OS he was an entire demesne. However through a frequently fined for depasturing his beasts gradual accumulation of pasture and in demesne pastures and for overstocking meadow land a number of peasant families the commons. He may well have engaged in the Tame Valley were able to pursue in some form of cereal production to sup- pastoralism profitably. port his livestock as he was selling straw The most spectacular example of such a to the Buckingham household in 1453. He family were the Deys of Drakenage who was also involved in other enterprises as amassed and consolidated a large estate in 1447 he was farming a fishpond at Lea based on cattle grazing which ultimately Marston and may have been the John Dey led to gentry status. Their origins are leasing the Middleton mills in 1435. 3" The obscure with no one of that name appear- Enclosure Commissioners of I517 rec- ing in either the 1327 or I332 Lay Subsidies orded that Richard Hastings had evicted in Kingsbury or any adjacent parishes. twelve peasants from Drakenage in I497 John Dey became the first member of the and enclosed 2oo acres. The present site family prominent in surviving records. In of Drakenage includes a reasonably large the absence of detailed rentals it is difficult moated site, where in 1394 there were to determine the extent of his holding but recorded a grange and chamber. 3s Field it seems to have included land in the walking has identified what appears to be manors of Kingsbury, Middleton, and Lea a complex of small enclosures to the east Marston. -'s In the twenty years following of the moat, probably animal pens, and 144o he steadily accumulated more land. these may have been contemporary with In 1444 he took on the holding of William Dey's occupation of the manor. 34 Lyndon in Marston; sometime later in 1459 By 1472 John Dey had built up a con- and 146o he obtained the holdings of Wil- siderable estate in the Tame Valley. The liam Barber and William Bodymoor in Lea Deys' power and status is well attested by Marston; while in I464 he acquired a toft

in the same village. In 1447 he had leased ~° NUL, Mild 4234; Report on the HastinCs M,umso'ipts, I-tist Ms for life nine butts in Kingsbury. -'') Probably Corn, I92S, I, p 149. 3, NUL, Mild 4238. he also farmed the Hastings manor of s-' NUL, MiL 5; SP, O, D 64]/1/3/4; BRL, Norton MSS 68a; NUL, MiM Ut/36a, MiM 169. :7 Atherstone; SRO, D 64[/H2/269; Kingsbury, NUL, Mil)a 9o; .u The Domesday of Enclosures, I S Leadam, (ed), Royal Historical Maxstoke: SRO, D 641/I/269 - D 641/1/2/276; BRL, DV2 Society, I1, 189% p 442; Hastings M,untscripts, p 149. 168236; Middleton: NUL, MiM 163, I75, 206; Old Fillongley: .u C J Bond, 'lgesertcd Medieval Villages ill Warwickshire: A Coventry P,eeord Office, Bond's Hospital Miscellany, E [o P,eview of the Field Evidence', Trans Birmingham amt IVaru,ickshire Sutton Coldfield: SBT, BRT/II31iSo. Arch Soc, LXXVI, 1974, p 94. 1 am most grateful to Mr Bourne .,s NUL, MiM 169, MiLs, BP, L, Norton MSS 64. Obviously the Wathcs, the present resident of l)rakenage Farm, for kindly surname 'l)ey' with its usual association of the humble, wage- allowing access to the site, and also to Christopher l)yer and earning dairy-maid, may be relevant in the context of the family's Simon Penn for accompanying me and giving the benefit of their origins. expertise. I am also grateful to the members of the Kingsbury "~ NUL, MiD 4234; SRO, D64]/2/272; BP, L I)V 5o6 4189]9, I)V Historical Society tbr sharing their knowledge and resources on 5o6 418923; NUL, MiD 4237, NUL, MiL 5. Drakenage's later development. /

CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 19 their frequent appearances as witnesses in in the court rolls. A chance reference makes gentry deeds and by the equal frequency clear his likely source of revenue as in 14o7 of gentry acting as witnesses for them." It he was recorded as having sixty cattle. 4° is from 1472 that John Dey styled himself In 141I, probably after his death, his son a gentleman, a title borne by his son Thomas had his father's lands in Middleton Thomas, who seems to have continued confirmed to him. These included two his father's activities. 36 After the I48OS the messuages, two crofts, one toft, thirteen main branch of the family apparently left acres of arable, meadow land, and 4os the area, although certain relatives lingered worth of pasture. ~' Thomas added to this at Lea Marston well into the following by taking a tort and croft in 1415, and in century, and a succession of new farmers, 1417 another croft and lands, while by who were also graziers, came to Draken- 142o he was leasing considerable parts of age. Without sensationalizing or over- the demesne. 4-" In a rental of 142o his own dramatizing, Drakenage, the centre of this holding was given as a messuage, a rood grazing activity, is one of the few deserted and a garden, a croft and meadow, and a villages of the Forest of Arden, possibly cottage with a curtilage worth IIS, but he although not probably, a parallel with was leasing demesne meadow and pasture some of the Feldon villages such as King- worth £3 8s 4d a year. 4s Philip and Thomas ston, depopulated because of the profit- Bailly both joined the gild at Lichfield and ability of animal grazing." also witnessed gentry deeds. 44 In contrast The Baillys of Middleton were another to the Deys their lands were centred in one peasant family who were able to acquire manor, but like the Deys they abruptly considerable lands and wealth through disappeared from the area. Although by cattle grazing. The founder of the dynasty 145o there were at least five men with the was Robert Aston, bailiff of Middleton, surname of Bailly in Middleton, a 1524 who in 1362 was the recipient ofa seignor- tithe account, listing all the households in ial grant of a messuage, croft, two acres, the parish, records not one. 4s and six selions of land. 3s Later deeds make Before the detailed probate inventories it clear that the family soon became known starting in the sixteenth century it is as Bailly and occasionally as Bailiff, extremely difficult to draw any precise reflecting their original role as manorial conclusions about the livestock keeping of officials. Robert's son, Philip, increased the 'ordinary' peasants. Although the evidence size of their holding between 1391 and is limited, it has been generally accepted I4OO. In I39I he leased the Courthouse that in the post-plague period livestock and attached land in Middleton. Six years ownership became more widespread and later he took on the holding of John Gres- disseminated throughout peasant society. 46 brook in the same manor. By I4OO he was In the north Arden cattle were the type styling himself as 'of Tamworth' a move of animal most commonly owned by the perhaps reflecting his increasing wealth." peasantry. A comparison of strays in court He possessed assets from which he fre- rolls for the area between 135o and I5OO quently advanced loans of money, suggests a ratio of about three cattle to although, unfortunately, no sums are given v, NUL, MiM t31/29- MiM t3H33, passim, MiM 131/34. " NUL Mild 4238, MiD 4239, Mild 424t. ~' NUL, MiD 4454. .m NUL, Mild 4241; BRL, Norton MSS 9-'. 4: NUL, MiDa 87, Mild 4455, MiM 175, MiM 2t4. 3, M W Beresford, 'The Deserted Villages of Warwickshire', Trans 4~ NUL, MiM t75, MiM, 214. Birm A)vh Soc, LXVI, 1945-6, pp 49-1o7; P, 1-1 Hilton, The 4~ Lichficld Joint P,ecord Office. 19 77/t, fo 7o; NUL, Mild 4445; English Peasantry in tile Later Middh' Ages, Oxford, [975, pp SBT, DR to/5tS. 169-73. 4s NUL, MiDa 91. ss NUL, Mild 4427. 4"C Dyer LoMs and Peasants in a Changing Society, Cambridge, "~ NUL, MiM t3H3t. Mild 4446, MiD 4447. t98o, pp 323-4. 20 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW every sheep, which is unlikely to be a true developments the origins of this seem reflection as sheep were notoriously prone firmly rooted in the later Middle Ages. s-" to stray. 47 Late fifteenth-century tithe accounts for Mancetter suggest widespread cattle ownership with 87 per cent of hold- III ings paying for them at Hartshill, 75 per The importance of animals within the For- cent at Oldbury, and 67 per cent at Man- est of Arden meant a considerable acreage cetter. Similarly, tithe accounts for Middle- was devoted to hay and fodder crops. ton in 1524 show that out of forty-three Accounts indicate most seignorial house- households only two did not pay tithes holds keeping livestock had more animals for cows or calves. 4~ Incidental references, than they were able to feed from their own mainly recording trespasses, show that resources. Obviously all animals required some peasant cattle herds were reasonably winter feeding but the most specialized large, and comparable in size with many requiring oats were horses and oxen, the found on demesnes. In 135o a herd of latter infrequently mentioned in the Arden. thirty was recorded at Hampton-in-Arden, Cattle were mainly fed hay, which twenty:-six oxen at Tanworth-in-Arden in although cheaper could still cause problems 138o, herds of twenty-three, twenty, and depending on how much meadow was sixteen cattle at Erdington in I35O and available, and often extra hay was bought 1379, and smaller herds of sixteen in 136o, in. Sheep, pigs, and poultry also needed and fifteen, and thirteen in 1375 at Wrox- winter forage and along with cattle and all. 49 Small herds of between ten and dog packs were frequently given peas and twenty approximating to the averages sug- beans, while substitutes such as browse gested by Skipp for the Arden in the mid- wood, twigs, holly, acorns, and nettles sixteenth century would therefore seem to could be given to cattle, s3 have been common in the previous century The Duke of Buckingham's household and a half. s° The tithe accounts also show in the I45OS had to buy in considerable the presence of at least one and often two quantities of fodder and bedding to main- milch-cows on most holdings even in the rain the ducal string of horses, beasts of town of Atherstone. Much of this dairy the chase, and their domestic animals. Well produce would have been for subsistence over one hundred carts of hay were but the Mountford and Willoughby house- received in a year, with an outlay of £14 hold accounts record a thriving trade in to £18 not being uncommon, s4 In 1454-5 milk, butter, and cheese, with peasant pro- the household purchased 300 cartloads of ducers supplying gentry households either hay, thirty-two cartloads of straw, 14o directly or through local markets, sl By the quarters, and two bushels of oats worth time of Defoe, Warwickshire was £18 7s Ild, and even in a comparatively renowned as one of England's foremost slack year, 1453-4, paid twenty-seven local cheese counties, with Atherstone especially peasants £9 I9S 5V2d for oats, barley, and prominent. As with many early modern straw." Some were able to make consider-

4v For sources see Table 3. Tile court rolls list 3,6 stray' bovine ~: A Dyer, 'Warwickshire Towns Under tile Tudors and Stuarts', anilnals but only 99 sheep and lalnbs. Warwickshire History, Ill, 197(~7, pp 122-34. as PP, O, E ,ol 5'9/3'; NUL, MiDa 9'. s~WCRO, CR 136/c15o, CI~. 136/cz52, CR 136/c154; NUL, 4,~ PRO, SC 2/207/3 ,; Bod Lib, MS Top Warwickshire c ,, fo 68; 5/z67/1ol; Trow-Smith, 0p cit, pp 117-8; J P,adley, 'Holb' as BRL, DV 327 247853, DV 327 347856; PRO, SC 2/2o7/94, SC Winter Feed', Ag Hist Rev, 9, 1961, pp 89-92; M Spray,, 'Holly 2/207/95. as Fodder in England, ibid, 29, 1981, pp 97-9. ~°V H T Skipp, Crisis and Developtnent, Cambridge, 1978, pp ~4 SRO, D 641/1/2/271 records in 1444-5 £'4 paid for 12o cartloads 89-90. of hay for the lord's cattle and SRO, D 641/I/2/275 records ill s' SBT DP, 37/73, NUL 5/,67/Jm, MiA 9, MiA 14, MiA IS, I475-6, 198 carts of hay. MiA 2o. 5s SRO, D 641/1/2/272, D 641/I/3/4. CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 2I TABLE 1 Land use recorded in the Forest of Arden in Final Concords (in acres) Arable Meadow Pasture Woodland Miscellaneous Total

1345-65 1584 138 58 227 - 2007 (79%) (70) (3%) (II%) - (IOO%) 139o-I4IO I I60 I 13 38 73 40 I424 (8i%) (8%) (3%) (5%) (3%) (ioo%) I44O-6O 3 82 66 369 3 2 822 (46%) (8%) (45%) (o.6%) (o.4%) (IOO%) I49O-I 509 1723 276 2o27 254 - 428o (40%) (6%) (48%) (6%) - (Ioo%)

Source: Warwickshire Feet of Fines, Volume III, I345-~5o9. L Drucker (ed), Dugdale Society, XVIII, I943. able amounts of money, such as William However this shift may have come earlier Harries of Coton, who was paid 2os for as demesnes at Middleton, Lea Marston, oats or Henry Porter of Maxstoke who and Tanworth-in-Arden consisted entirely received I7s for hay. Similarly the livestock of pasture by the early fifteenth century, s7 keeping of other members of the gentry Although there was a shrinkage of arable and nobility stimulated the cereal and hay acreage it showed a degree of stability in cultivation of local peasants. The the latter two-thirds of the century, and Mountfords, Binghams, Astleys, and Fre- such movement away from arable was not villes all bought in extra grains, hay and nearly so pronounced or so progressive as straw for their herds, s6 This must have in the Feldon. As the number of animals stimulated other cereal growing sectors kept in the area was rising throughout the within local rural society, while the fifteenth century, as is witnessed in the demand for fodder and bedding must have frequent complaints of overstocking, tres- extended downwards from the gentry passes, and stints, the demand for fodder through the ranks of the butcher-graziers must have correspondingly increased, both to the peasants within the villages and in arable cultivation and in the nurturing hamlets. and mowing of meadows for hay. 5~ The emphasis on animal husbandry The predominance of animals in the therefore encouraged a particular type of Arden may even have influenced the types cereal production. This in turn helped to of crops grown. Grange extents provide keep land ill arable cultivation. Obviously the best source of any comparison between there had been changes in land use in the Arden and Feldon. Table 2 compares the Arden during the period. The best the types of crop recorded as harvested on indication of this is given by the type nine Feldon and Avon Valley demesnes and amount of land recorded in concords. and eight Arden manors between I353 and These are all imperfect source as they do I43I. There are clear differences in the not represent a reflective sample of all land types of cereal, with pulse, maslin, and in the area but they do broadly indicate dredge being more significant on the Fel- the underlying trend. Table I suggests that don demesnes but the major difference the decisive movement towards pasture in s7 NUL, MiM 167, MiM 175, MiD 4227; BILL, Norton MSS 53; the Arden came in the period x4Io-3o. SBT, I)R 37/Io7/z. ss Dyer, WarwickshireFarming,, p 31; WCRO, MR I, NUL, MiL 5;WCRO, MR t3/35; NUL, MiM 133/'1; BRL, DY 327 347863; 5. SBT, I)R 37/73; NUL 5/~67/ml; WCP,O. CP. 136/cl5o, CR Norton MSS 52; NUL, 5/169b/17; WCRO, CR 1886/298; SBT 136/c151 , CR136/cl53, CR 136/c154; NUL, MiM 165. DR 3/791. 22 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW

TABLE 2 between the two is the greater importance Types of Crops Harvested in Warwickshire Grange Extents 1353-1431 of peas and beans in the Arden. The demesnes at Astley and Middleton often Feldon and Avon Valley Quarters % had 45-50 per cent of their total harvest in Wheat 851 29 legumes, and a greater part of this was Rye 60 2 consumed within the manor by servants, Barley 499 17 pigs, poultry, and cattle.S 9 Maslin 22 I Pulse Io8 4 Dredge 66o 22 Sparse and terse as the records for Oats 316 io demesne production are they are positively Peas and Beans 445 r 5 eloquent when compared to the paucity of information on Arden peasant cereal 296I JOO cultivation. Only a few details survive, much for that being destroyed by trespass- ing. Table 3 shows the references to peas- ant crops destroyed by the actions of fellow Arden Quarte. % peasants and their animals in the court rolls of thirteen Arden manors, and while this Wheat 704 36 obviously is very imprecise it gives a Rye 107 5.5 Barley 128 7 reasonable impression of the crops grown. Pulse IO o.5 The goods of two Middleton men give a Dredge 169 9 similar indication of the range of grains Oats 258 ~3 sown. In I4O7 Laurence Scott was arrested Peas and Beans 562 29 and in his barn there were found peas and

I938 IOO beans, oats, dredge, and hay, as well as two harrows, and other agricultural implements worth £2, while in I423 John Gammel had the misfortune to have his Note: Quantities of grains have been rounded up wheat, barley, oats, peas, and beans or down to the nearest quarter. Similarly, where practical, percentages have been rounded up or destroyed by trespassing animals. '~o Inter- down. estingly, Hilton noticed an increase in the amounts of peas and beans grown both on Sources: Feldon and Avon Valley, 32 extents: Oversley, demesnes and peasant holdings in cham- SBT, DR 5/2254; Lighthorne, SBT, DR 98 672 a- pion parts of neighbouring Leicestershire d, 674 & a, 685; Snitterfield, BL, Eg.Roll 8624 (I am indebted to Christopher Dyer for allowing me during the fifteenth century, which in part to make use of his transcriptions of the above he attributed to the need for livestock documents); Sutton-under-Brailes, GCRO, fodder. 6' Dxo99/M31/44-54; Great Chesterton, SBT, DR Others may have concentrated more on 98/393b; Budbroke, WCRO, CR 895/iI-16, I8-29; Brandon; PRO, SC 6//o38/9; Birdingbury, Devon particular crops such as wheat for sale Record Office, 248/M6 (I am indebted to Dick or barley for brewing. The Buckingham Holt for drawing nay attention to this document); accounts suggest that oats were cultivated Radbourne, 'The Status Maneriorum of John Cates- on a considerable scale by peasant pro- by', pp 23-8. Arden: 18 extents: Astley, WCRO, CR ducers, while other accounts show that I36/c I5o-2; Middleton, NUL, MiM I65; Maxstoke, Bod Lib Trinity MS 84, SBT, DR 37/II4, PRO.SC oats were an important conamodity in the 6/Io4o/9-Ii; Fillongley, PRO, SC 6/Io4o/8; Shustoke, PRO, SC 6/io4o/I9; Knowle, PRO, SC ~'~ WCRO, CR t35/c]5o-.2; NUL, MiM 165. 6/xo4o/I-2; Nuneaton, BL, Add Roll 49753; '~'NUL, MiM t31/34 , MiM t3]/38b. , SBT, DR 3/802,805. ,,t R H Hilton, The Econ,,mic DevelolmWnt of some LeicesteaLdlire Estates in the Fourtc;'nth and F(lieenth Ct'nturi('s, Oxford, 1947. pp 64-6. !' CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 23

TABLE 3 and manuring and marling were com- Instances of Peasants' Crops Damaged by Tres- mon. 6g The later medieval Arden would pass in the Forest of Arden H5o-I5oo seem to have some similarities with four- Peas & teenth century Norfolk having small units Crop: Wheat Barley Rye Oats Dredge Beans of production, mutually beneficial crops and widespread manuring. References 33 i I 8 17 8 26 The yield of only one peasant holding in the Arden is known, that of John Kent of Stivichall in I48I, which has been com- Sources: Atherstone, WRCO, MR I3/I-35; Baddcs- prehensively described by Christopher ley Clinton, SBT, DR 3/78-97; Erdington, BRL, DV 327 347853-347867; Kingsbury, NUL, MILs, Dyer. '~s This is difficult to process because MiM I3O/I-2; Lea Marston; BRL, Norton MSS of the unknown yields of the crops and 5I-II6; Middleton, NUL, MiM I31/25-49; Mox- the problem of ascertaining how much of hull, WCRO, MRI; Nuneaton, BL Add Rolls the holding was under the plough, Kent 4953o-49555; Stoneleigh, SBT, DR I8/3o/24/8-44; grew dredge, rye, and barley, but paradox- Sutton Coldfield, NUL, MiM t34/I-I8; Tanworth- in-Arden, Bod Lib, MS Top Warwickshire CI, ically no legumes, slightly under half his SBT, 1)R 37/IO9; Temple Balsall, WCRO, CR crop was oats, easily the worst yielding a I2/Ba 518-2I, 363; Wishaw, WCRO, MR 2; Wrox- grain. When these are taken into account it all, PRO, SC2/m7/94-97. would seem that his yield was somewhere between eleven and twenty bushels an acre, markets at Birmingham, Coleshill, Ather- with the latter probably being a truer stone, Tamworth, and Solihull. ('-" Wheat, reflection of his harvest. Even though this barley, and legumes feature prominently is poor compared to modern expectations in debt litigation in the towns of Ather- it is far better than the miserable yields stone and Nuneaton suggesting a consider- recorded on demesnes and present holdings able volume of traffic in these. <' Hay must elsewhere in Warwickshire, which may have been one of the major crops of the support Campbell's view that under cer- Arden and on many holdings a high per- tain conditions peasant yields could be centage of acres must have been under superior to those of the demesnes. ~ grass. With the abundance of small crofts and closes in the Arden and the relative min- ority of the open field land the nature of IV cereal production differed markedly from There are now encouraging signs that after the Feldon. As legumes have a considerable a period of serious neglect, interest is being replenishing value to soil, adding nitrogen, renewed in medieval pastoralism, and this the large numbers of livestock, and their will undoubtedly help to provide a more manure, should in theory have helped the complete picture of the English economy fertility of the land. Campbell has sug- in the later middle ages. 6v The nature of gested that in fourteenth-century Norfolk cattle grazing in the Forest of Arden was the best ratio of yields was given on small different from other areas already studied. holdings, where labour imput was both r,4 B M S Campbell, 'Agricultural Progress in Medieval England: high and intensive. It was also an area Some Evidence from East Norfolk', Econ Hist Rev, and ser, where legumes were grown in quantity XXXVI, 1983, pp 27-34. ¢'~ Dyer, WarwickshireFarming, pp 29-3o, note 9-'. e,¢, ibid, p 14; Hilton, The English Peasantry, pp 2ot-2. "-' SRO, I) 64ffff3/4; NUL, MiM n65; SBT, I)R 37/73; WCRO, *,v M Mate, 'Pastoral farming in South-east England in the Fifteenth MR 13/2; MR x3/3, MP, 13/14; PROJI ff977. Century', Econ Hist Rev, 2nd ser, XL, 1987, pp 523-36; I r,~ WCRO, MR 13/2. MR 13/3, MR ~3/14, MR 13/25, MR H/3o; Blanchard, 'The Continental European Cattle Trades, BL Add Roll 4953o, 49530, 49551, 49578. 14oo-t6oo', Econ Hist Rev, and ser, XXXIX, x986, pp 427-6o. 24- THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW The landscape contrasted with the upland early fifteenth centuries, and similarly most slopes of Northern England and in the references to peasant herds occur in the Arden grazing was not based on rough late fourteenth century. However, the evi- moorland pasture suitable for little else. dence of the final concords and the cre- Obviously summer and winter pasturing scendo of material relating to stints and found on the de Lacy vaccaries in Rossen- overstocking in court rolls suggests the dale or in Wales with the system of hafod major expansion of cattle grazing in the and hendre was not necessary in Warwick- Arden began in the second quarter of the shire. Instead Arden grazing was on com- fifteenth century, a growth that continued paratively good quality pastureland, often at a variable pace into the next century. which had lapsed from arable use, in com- The Derbyshire material also suggests that partments within seignorial parks and in pastoral farming could be localized. Blan- enclosed fields. The size of herds also con- chard identified the years I448-56 as wit- trasted with some of those recorded in the nessing a slump in pastoral activity in North, where vast herds, such as the de Derbyshire, yet this was the period in Lacy's 2423 head of cattle pastured in Ros- which John Brome was most active in sendale in I296, were often maintained.'~s cattle fattening in the Arden. Similarly In the Arden grazing was on a much Blanchard saw stagnation in Derbyshire smaller scale and more diversified socially, between I465-75, whereas during this time practised by powerful peers, such as Buck- in the Arden the Deys rose to the height ingham, by members of the gentry and of their grazing activities. 70 by peasant families such as the Deys and The cattle raising in the Forest of Arden Baillys. The numbers of animals involved represents only an intermediate stage of a were also comparatively small with herds more extensive network. The majority of of even a hundred rare in the Arden. animals coming into the area had Welsh The continuous nature of the records of origin and presumably after fattening the Duchy of Lancaster's Derbyshire many were moved ola. Londoners buying estates enabled Blanchard to suggest that fatstock from the Earl of Warwick's although the general trend was for an demesne at Wedgnok Park in I43I and increase in pastoral activity in the fifteenth from John Brome in I446, the aforemen- century, there were considerable fluctu- tioned John le Deyster and London mer- ations with booms and slumps at twenty- chants active in smaller centres, such as year intervals. 6'~ The lack of a continuous Atherstone and Nuneaton, show that some series of records for any of the Arden Arden beef animals had London as their estates makes it difficult to establish a ultimate destination, v' It would be chronology of the development of cattle extremely profitable to trace the animals grazing in the area. The records which do in either direction, and would no doubt survive giving exact animal numbers are greatly add to our appreciation of medieval concentrated in the late fourteenth and road traffic and long distance networks of trade. The interpretation of the later medieval r,s Trow-Smith, op tit, p 94; Kershaw, op tit, pp 97-1o5; 1~, A Donkin, 'Cattle on the Estates of the Medieval Cistercian Monas- English economy has long been a source teries in England and Wales', Ec0n Hist Rev, and set, XV, 1962-3, of difference among historians, with some pp 3x-53; L M Cantor (ed), The English Medieval LaMscalw, 1982, p 65; Birrell, op tit, pp t18-23; Bennett, op tit, p 7t; seeing it as a period of decline, of stag- Wright, op tit, pp ll.,~zl; J R Birrell, 'Medieval Agriculture', in nation, or of economic difficulties, while VCH Staffordshire, VI, pp io--I I; G /-I Tupling, The Economic Histor), qfRosm~dale, Manchester, 19z7, pp I~-.~6. ~'~ The Duchy qf Lancaster's Estates in DerlJyshire 1485-U4o, l S W 7,, ibht p t I, SBT, DR 3/8m, I)R 318o3. Blanchard (ed). Derbyshire Arch Soe Record Series, Ill, 1967, v' WCRO, CR 1886/488; SBT, I)R 3/8oi; Calendar ,!fP,m'm Rolls, pp I-,5. 1422-..,9, p ,.38; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1467-77, p 440. /

CATTLE GRAZING IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 25 others have seen it as a time of unrivalled ing from Feldon areas. In contrast to large opportunities for growth. Many agree that scale sheep farming which on many forest areas were generally more buoyant occasions was destructive of the established economically in the fifteenth and early six~- rural economy, such as in south Warwick- teenth centuries than the champion shire, cattle raising, particularly in the countryside where decay, abandonment, Forest of Arden, strengthened the rural and engrossing were more widespread, w economy in a period of agrarian difficulty Woodland landscapes were also less affec- and change. More detailed studies are now ted by the profound changes in rural required of other areas where benign pas- society during this period and in many toral economies existed. These, if not lead- instances provided a refuge for those flee- ing to a reappraisal of the fifteenth century economy, would at the very least greatly enhance our knowledge of one of the most v:j Thirsk (ed), The Agrarian History of Era!land and 1,141h.s, II/, seriously neglected, yet most important, 1500--164o, Cambridge, 1967, pp 4o9--II, 422-8, 431-5x; Skipp, op cih pp 7-8, Phythian-Adams. op cit, pp 24-5. parts of later medieval agrarian history.

Notes on Contributors

D L FARMER has taught at St Thomas More College ANDREW COPUS graduated in geography at Aber- in the University of Saskatchewan since t97o, and ystwyth, and subsequently carried out research there has been Chairman of the History Department since into prices and markets for agricultural produce in 1974. He has written the chapters on prices and southern England 17oo-I 9oo, and their impact upon wages for the medieval volumes of the Agrarian farming systems. He later taught geography for four History qfEngland and Wales, and also for Vol III all years at Luton Sixth-Form College. At present he essay on 'Marketing the produce of the countryside, is a research Fellow at the School of Agriculture, I2oo-I5oo'. From I984 to I988 he edited tile Callad- the University of Aberdeen, where he is involved iafiJournal of Histor),. He is now completing a study ill research on the rural economy of the Less Fav- of woodland exploitation ill medieval England, and oured Areas of the UK, and with EEC Structures plans to begin soon all examination of pasture man- Policy. agement. DR LEAH LENEMAN worked on Scottish land settle- ment as a Research Fellow in the l)epartment of ANDREW WATKINS is a teacher at Coleshill School. Scottish History, University of St Andrews. She He is about to submit his Phi) thesis for the Univer- has held various university research posts and has sity of Birmingham's School of History on the also been employed by the Scottish Record Office. society and economy of the later medieval Forest of She is the author of Living in Atholl 1685-1785: A Arden. His main fields of interest are in agrarian Social History of the Estates (Edinburgh, I986) and history, marketing of produce, and development editor of Perspectives ill Scottish Social Histor),: Essays and function of small market towns in later medieval in Honour of Rosalind Mitcllisoll (Aberdeen, I988). Warwickshire. In collaboration with Professor Mitchison she has written Sexuality and Social Control, Scotlasld NORMAN HIDDEN MA (OXON) was Senior Lecturer in 66o-178o (Oxford, forthcoming). English at the College of All Saints (now Middlesex PolytecMic), and is now retired. He is Vice-Presi- MARK CLEARY, Lecturer in Geography at the Univer- dent of the National Poetry Society. Recent publi- sity of Exeter, has research interests in the history cations include: The Manor of Hidden in Berkshire and of agricultural unionism ill France since the end of Wilts (I987) and The Hiddens c~ Hungel~fi~rd wd 1 the nineteenth century, and in the nature of peasant (1988). Recent articles have appeared in Wihshire protest in twentieth-century Europe. He has recently Archaeological Magazine (Autunm I988), English published Peasants, Politicians and Producers: the organ- (Autumn 1988), Berkshire Old mid New (1)ecember izatio, of agricuhure in France since 19~8 (Cambridge, 1987), The Genealogists' Ma~azine (June I987). I989).